Jury Dings File Sharer $1.5 Million for 24 Songs

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the first file sharer to take a Recording Industry Association of America lawsuit to a jury trial, was dinged late Wednesday $62,500 for each of 24 songs she pilfered on Kazaa — $1.5 million in all.

The result is the third verdict by a Minnesota jury in a case that has morphed into a real-life version of Groundhog Day. And Wednesday’s outcome is not likely to be the last word, either.

The Brainerd, Minnesota, woman has repeatedly vowed to appeal what her lawyers said were “excessive damages.” Making matters more confusing, the judge presiding over all three trials ruled after the previous trial that $54,000 was the maximum amount of damages for such conduct.

The verdict proves once again that federal juries are willing to slap file sharers with monster awards. The only other file sharing case to have gone to trial resulted in a Boston jury last year awarding the RIAA $675,000 for 30 songs — a decision on appeal after a judge reduced the verdict to $67,500.

The latest iteration of Thomas-Rasset comes more than four moths after U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ordered both sides to settle a case that has what best can be described as having a tortured past.

But negotiations failed. That’s largely why there were two trials and now a third — the third one ending and beginning Tuesday because no accord could be reached.

Under the latest failed negotiations, Thomas-Rasset refused to pay anything. The RIAA wanted $25,000 for the 24 tracks. That offer came after a second Minnesota jury had awarded $1.92 million, and the judge reduced it to $54,000 a year ago.

We got to the latest stage of Thomas-Rasset after Judge Davis declared the $1.92 million verdict “shocking” and said damage awards “must bear some relation to actual damages.”

Davis’ decision last year was the first time a judge has reduced the amount of damages in a Copyright Act case. He ordered a new trial or settlement.

The third trial involved the jury assuming the woman’s liability, while affixing a new damages figure. Because of the posture of the case, the parties could not directly appeal the judge’s earlier decision lowering the jury’s verdict. Assuming the judge reduces the damages again, or leaves it intact, the appeals courts would be more inclined to take the case to avoid another day of legal groundhog.

Among the big bones of contention that would be addressed on appeal, Thomas-Rasset claims damages under the Copyright Act are unconstitutionally excessive. The RIAA claims the judge did not have the power to lower a Copyright Act jury award.

Thomas-Rasset famously lost her first trial in 2007, resulting in a $222,000 judgment. But months after the four-day trial was over, Judge Davis declared a mistrial, saying he add incorrectly instructed the jury that merely making copyrighted work available on a file sharing program constituted infringement, regardless of whether anybody downloaded the content.

Most of the thousands of RIAA file sharing cases against individuals settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. The RIAA has said it has ceased its campaign of suing individual file sharers.